The Warm-Up: David Moyes is... extremely confident
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Published 31/12/2019 at 09:10 GMT
It's a very happy New Year from everyone at the Warm-Up: may you have the confidence of David Moyes in 2020
David Moyes of West Ham United during Training at Rush Green on December 30, 2019 in Romford, England
Image credit: Getty Images
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
The confidence of Moyes
There’s a cartoon that the New Yorker published this decade which sprang to mind when David Moyes was giving his press conference, re-introducing himself as West Ham manager on Monday. It shows a man and a woman having dinner, the woman has a familiar look of impatience and disgust on her face while the man enthusiastically casts forth on something or other. The caption reads: “Let me interrupt your expertise with my confidence.”
That cartoon occurred because Moyes…well, Moyes was sounding pretty confident. Pretty confident for a man whose record since leaving Everton in 2013 is not exactly at the most stellar levels. Moyes said:
What anybody is getting with me is an experienced Premier League manager. Arguably there is only two or three who have got more than me. I’ve got the biggest win-rate out of a certain number of managers as well. That’s what I do. I win.
There are indeed two or three – three, to be precise: Ferguson, Wenger and Redknapp – who are more experienced than Moyes in terms of Premier League games managed, and his win-rate is indeed respectable, at 42.11% over his whole career.
But it does feel necessary to point out that his last four jobs have ended in being sacked by Manchester United, sacked by Real Sociedad, relegated with Sunderland and his contract not being renewed by West Ham the first time around because, while he kept them in the Premier League, the football was so eye-bleeding that they thought Manuel Pellegrini would be a better bet.
Of course, confidence is no bad thing as a manager and if you’re not going to toot your own horn then nobody is. But…boy, this is some confidence.
Monterrey’s title meant even more to their manager
It was the second leg of the Liga MX Apertura final on Sunday, between Monterrey and Club America, a colossal event in the Mexican football calendar for everyone in the country but for Monterrey coach Antonio Mohamed, it meant even more.
When the tie finished 3-3 and everything came down to penalties, Mohamed was on the touchline praying. And not in the figurative sense that most of us might pray for good fortune during a penalty shoot-out, but he was actually praying using his rosary, because victory would not just have meant Mohamed’s third Apertura title with his third different club, but it also meant fulfulling a promise he made to his son who tragically died in a car accident in 2006.
Mohamed promised his son, Farid, that one day he would return to the club he supported, Monterrey, and win a title for him. On Sunday, he managed it. When the final penalty went in, Leonel Vangioni scoring past America keeper Guillermo Ochoa, Mohamed burst into tears.
Also in the Monterrey team, as you may have spotted at the recent Club World Cup, is former Tottenham hotshot Vincent Janssen, who also found the net in the shoot-out. And it’s probably safe to say that he enjoyed himself.
IN OTHER NEWS
As it’s the final day of 2019, let’s have a look at a few of the sillier things that have amused us over the last year.
Let’s start with Cristiano Ronaldo advertising some sort of Singaporean electronics shopping thing or something, a presumably very expensive advert which, going by its post-Ronaldo Twitter following of 2,190, was worth every penny.
Speaking of Ronaldo, perhaps the Warm-Up is being thick here but can anyone enlighten us as to what he’s actually sitting in here? Is it a weird private plane? A super deluxe caravan? A massive stretch Hummer or something?
And speaking of egos, you can’t tell us you didn’t also enjoy Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s statue getting the nose removed from it not long after it was erected.
And then, there was this penalty. What do you mean ‘what penalty?’ THIS penalty.
RETRO CORNER
A very happy birthday to Steve Bruce, so as well as enjoying his literary oeuvre, here’s that time he won Manchester United the title (sort of) and caused Brian Kidd to put holes straight through the knees of his strides.
HAT TIP
It’s weird. It’s like it’s changed completely for ever but it’s also like my life’s sort of the same. I am comfortable. I’ve always sort of spoken fast and loose and I’ve always been a soccer player, so those things are normal. It’s just all … amplified.
Megan Rapinoe speaks to the Guardian’s Suzy Wrack about how life has changed this year after, well, you know, everything that’s happened to her this year.
COMING UP
There will be no Warm-Up on New Year’s Day, as our staff contemplates what the year ahead may bring and perhaps more pertinently contemplates what an error staying up for that extra hour was and that everything now hurts. Anyway, ahead there is a full Premier League slate, as our insatiable lust for football and for flogging these highly-paid but still undeniably human athletes continues apace. Enjoy, and we all hope you have an excellent and prosperous 2020.
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